From Heavy Metal to Heavy Industry

Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson on risk, reward, and the 'common sense' required even of rock-star entrepreneurs.

By

Anne Jolis

Jan. 3, 2013 3:31 p.m. ET

London

For three decades, Bruce Dickinson has been an object of worship in the headbanging world of hard rock and heavy metal music. Last May, the Iron Maiden frontman became a hero to an entirely different crowd—namely, a political establishment desperate to claim industrial revival.

"This is exactly the type of investment needed," declared the Welsh business minister of Mr. Dickinson's plan to "create hundreds of highly skilled engineering jobs" with a new aircraft-maintenance venture in Cardiff. His own statements at the time had featured the words "cautious projection" and "up to," but no matter: "Iron Maiden singer pledges 1,000 new jobs to Wales," read one typical headline. The U.K. Trade and Investment bureau promptly began figuring the top-end projections into its tally of "jobs new and safeguarded."

Seven months and a few reams of paperwork later, Mr. Dickinson was good enough to meet me for coffee and an update: Cardiff Aviation Ltd. now employs a grand total of 40 people, and expects to have between 100-125 by the summer.

"And, well, that's not bad!" says Mr. Dickinson, who's quick to note that even rock gods live in "the wonderful world of practicality."

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That can be easy to forget, given Mr. Dickinson's record. His tenor belting has helped sell more than 85 million Maiden albums since he first joined the band in 1981, and created more jobs for T-shirt vendors than any ministry could hope to count. The 54-year-old superstar—also a competitive fencer, successful novelist, licensed pilot and serial entrepreneur—has resurrected heavy metal from the commercial trash-heap more than once. Surely he could do the same for heavy manufacturing.

So what specifically is standing between him and his best-case vision in Cardiff?

"Clearly aviation is a highly regulated industry, and it does take time for the wheels to grind," Mr. Dickinson says carefully. At first glance, he almost blends in with the dark-suited bankers milling through the courtyard of the Royal Exchange. Look closer and you'll spot the rocker, his navy suit in pinwale corduroy, the hair a good two fingers longer than City standard.

ENLARGE

Zina Saunders

While governments like to tout their courtship of skilled manufacturing jobs, in practice "civil servants, on some level, are almost institutionally prejudiced against entrepreneurial activity and risk," Mr. Dickinson goes on. "Of course nobody wants to return to the dark ages, no one wants to return to fundamentally unsafe work practices." But he warns that overregulation and the burgeoning "health and safety thing" add up to "an industry that is eating itself, that has been created and is creating an entire industry which will eventually consume manufacturing and retailing."

The result is that Cardiff Aviation, for instance, currently has "five million dollars worth of heavy engineering machinery—we have enough stuff in our hangar to build an airliner, let alone maintain it," says Mr. Dickinson. But the company is still waiting on its certifications for heavy-duty work, and in the meantime, "we can't afford to have people sitting around doing nothing."

I ask how the Cardiff site's location in Wales's official "Aviation Enterprise Zone" is helping with the red tape. Mr. Dickinson responds with a chuckle: "I wish I could tell you exactly what an 'Enterprise Zone' is."

"No, there are some benefits," he says, such as "direct access to some very very proactive civil servants" in Wales. "And they can give us some breaks—temporary breaks on things like business rates," a form of property tax.

"But they are limited," he adds of the Welsh authorities, with no control over most regulations or, for example, British value-added tax rates. "If they could defer VAT, so you don't have to charge 20% tax on everything you do, that would be massive."

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The retort that lower taxes would fund less government is unlikely to go far with Mr. Dickinson, who says he "would cheerfully pay the amount of tax I do at the moment if I didn't pay it to the government."

As it stands, "No, I'm not a famous British tax exile," he sighs, confirming that he pays the current 50% rate outright on his personal income (dropping to 45% in April). "I live here. And I pay my tax here. Whilst I think the rate of tax is too high," he shrugs, "I like living here."

That arrangement not only sets him apart from the likes of Ringo and Mick (respectively domiciled in Monaco and the Virgin Islands). It also means that "I pay about 500 times more tax than Amazon," which makes a quarter of its non-U.S. sales in the U.K but bases its European operations in Luxembourg, thus escaping most U.K. corporate taxes.

"It amused me when I found out how much tax they didn't pay, and how much tax I pay as a personal individual," he says, with a smile that suggests he wasn't all that amused.

What really seems to get him, though, is that "there is so much money wasted on the inland revenue. It's vast, the costs involved, on both sides. People employing clever accountants and lawyers and all this nonsense, and then a massive amount is spent by the Exchequer chasing them all over the world."

As if to prove his point, Her Majesty's treasury last month announced it would spend an extra £77 million on more tax inspectors, and said it will propose new legislation this year to target "abusive tax avoidance" of the sort that's perfectly legal today.

The alternative, endorsed by Mr. Dickinson, would be a flat rate. "You simply say everybody has to pay it—if you're born in this country, you pay 20%. End of story, no tax exiles, you want to live in Monaco, fine—20%."

Inescapable income taxes are a feature of the U.S. fiscal code, though it's hardly flat. I put that to Mr. Dickinson and ask if—given the costs, regulations and rigamarole in Britain—he's ever considered taking his projects to the U.S.

"Well sadly, I think I'd rather open a business in this country than the U.S.," he says. "The U.S. is—it's a minefield. Open a business in California? You must be joking. The lawyers, the taxes—people talk about high taxes here. Well, yes they are high, but in America, in the places you might really want to open a business—New York, L.A.—you've got state taxes, city taxes, state income taxes, city income taxes—you add that lot up, you're paying more over there than here."

None of that makes the U.S. coasts particularly attractive for employers of any kind, let alone multimillionaire rock stars. And Mr. Dickinson is firm that, whether you're touring the world with a metal band or trying to run a more mundane business, "You've got to have a vision, but you've also got to have common sense."

He learned that a while ago. "One of my earliest ventures was when I was nine years old," he recalls. "I realized there was a shortage of pencils at school, so I started Rent-a-Pencil. But I made a fundamental mistake"—he'd failed to secure his inventory. "Everybody stole my pencils."

Miss Jolis is an editorial page writer for The Wall Street Journal Europe.

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